Close circuit video and acoustic surveillance will
both deter criminal activity, and aide in the apprehension and
prosecution when necessary. The obvious need for privacy
dictates certain limitation in its use and placement.

Motion Sensors - detects usage or can be set to detect only those
quick motions associated with misuse

Video lavatory, record only

Video lavatory, monitor only

Video lavatory, record & monitor

Acoustic Sensors - detect brakeage and calls for help

Note: Lavatory is the hand washing
area

LEGALLY APPROVED WARNING
SIGNS
PROTECT PRIVACY AND ACT AS A DETERRENT

ENTRIES AND EXITS TO PUBLIC RESTROOMS

To improve security particularly for women, entrances
to toilet facilities should be located where a clear site-line
exist to high traffic
public area's.

A labyrinth entrances directly along major
traffic corridors provide both the 'sense of' and actual security.
Worse-case configuration have restrooms at the end of long corridor's
where users have no acoustic or visual site-line to a high person
traffic area

CUSTOMER LOCKED RESTROOMS

Everyone understands the reasons for locks on stalls.
Locks on the outside door to the full restroom, however, significantly impact the
availability of the facility. An unlocked facility may find a
person in a stall while another is washing, and a third is using a hand
dryer. This same situation in a locked room would have 2 people
waiting outside. Locked rooms also increase misuse, such as
longer employee smoke breaks, that further increase the likelihood of
queuing.

STALL DOORS

There should be no outside latches that could be used
to lock a person in a stall

RESTROOM DOORS

Labyrinth entrances
(door-less) avoid the problem of an outward swinging door hitting
someone. With no door opening to give warning of possible
visit by security personnel labyrinth design is less conducive to
unwanted activity. Additionally, the sound signature ofcriminal
activity is more likely to be detected when no doors exist. (see
also LOCKS)

CEILINGS

Open ceilings or a ceiling with ventilation provide a
conduit for sound. Some sound dampening is necessary to assure
privacy but the knowledge that a call for help can be heard reduces
apprehension of both the occupant and a waiting parent or opposite sex
care-provider.

DOOR HANDLES

Where paper towels are present many will use a piece
of towel to grip the handle. Some littering of the restroom floors
can reduced by recognizing this smart practice and providing trash
receptacles close to the exit.

DOOR & MIRRORS SIGHT LINES

Thoughtlessly placed mirrors may provide a sight-line
into areas where privacy was intended, for example the unshielded
urinals in the men's room. In some case poorly placed toilet
fixtures can be viewed directly. Thoughtfully placed mirrors can
increase security, especially in Women's Restrooms, by allowing a line
of sight from the entrance to the back of the restroom.

The worse situation is an external restroom door with
internal slide locks. They provide no mechanism for building
management to intervene when an occupant fails to respond after an
excessive period of usage. (see also DOORS)

Portable Sanitation Units often have outside latches
that accommodate a pad lock. A child with a small stick can easily
'imprison' an occupant.

Student facing expulsion... ...When the student was questioned
... claimed he had mistakenly entered the wrong restroom ... video
clearly showed the student exiting the menís restroom and then entering the womenís
restroom. Later, the teacher is seen leaving the womenís restroom and then the
student is seen running from the womenís
restroom....Massillon
Independent OH 4/5/07

________________

Surveillance
cameras ... at Strawberry Lake Park in Norway Mich, officials
say, the cameras are legal.. The cameras are not in the stalls of the rest
rooms.WLUC-TV Negaunee,MI
6/19/06

________________

...In what may be the future of
high-traffic buildings in America, the architecturally inventive library
on Nicollet Mall has installed surveillance cameras in its most frequented
restrooms. The ceiling-embedded cameras do not
videotape stalls or urinals,but they capture patrons as they
head for the sinks and hand dryers.SMILE, BOOK
LOVERS TwinCities Pioneer
Press - St. Paul,MN 9/23/06

________________

...The escort policy is soon to be
discontinued, and other options are more effective anyway: Investing
in camerasto monitor bathroom entrances
would minimize vandalism and identify the threat makers... Salem OR
Statesman Journal 'Heavy school security is an ineffective quick fix'
11/22/06

________________

... The students who set the fires were caught through video surveillance...All Headline News Corp
'High School Students Walked To Bathroom' 11/6/2006

________________

As written, the ordinance would make it illegal to beg for money within 15 feet of ATMs,
public bathrooms, pay phones, businesses and several other places.GA. Macon
Telegraph 12/06/06

________________

Woman sentenced in crack case - A LaPorte
woman was sentenced for locking herself in a service
station restroom for two hours and
smoking crack cocaine.South Bend (IN)
Tribune
2/27/07

________________

...an infrared detection system became available to record employees' restroom habits. Sensors could record and indicate when a person entered a
restroom, and whether they stopped at the sink for at least 15 seconds to wash their hands, and even whether they used soap...Redding, CA The
Record Searchlight 5/20/07

Around the corner, the public toilets have
blue lights. This is a pragmatic Swiss solution for preventing needle junkies from using that space for shooting up: Under the
blue lights, they can't see their veins.
Dallas Morning News, Inc 8/5/09

PRIVACY PARTITIONS

Urinal privacy sufficiently high to prevent adjacent
urinal person to person
eye-contact is an impediment to nefarious activities.

Most toilet stalls partitions do not reach the floor
to accommodate easy mopping. This configuration is also an
impediment to misuse such as long employee smoke breaks.
Long tongue latches that catch inside door frame allow stall doors to
stay closed even if poorly installed frames become misaligned.

TOILET PAPER ISSUES - Misuse versus availability.

Roll-over (switch-over to second roll) when empty.
High dissolvability tissue prevents clogs in high use environments
Restricted quantity push button feed systems

This is a follow-up story to one that appeared earlier. The one consensus of those who discussed the earlier story was that signs should be clearly displayed so that everyone knows what areas of the restroom are covered.

... Cameras in restrooms and fireproof book drops have taken library security to a new level, with the goal of creating a safe environment. ...
Source: 'A new book on library security' Minneapolis Star Tribune Minneapolis,MN,USAhttp://www.startribune.com/462/story/729486.html

It's very unfortunate that this level of security is deemed necessary.
Are the cameras monitored by gender-appropriate personnel? Probably not. Not OK.
Are they recorded? probably so. Not so OK.
Are the cameras clearly and appropriately disclosed? probably so--OK.

As a sometime patron of both the Minneapolis and St. Paul (Ramsey county) libraries, I'm all in favor of security cameras everywhere.
Since it seems certain that libraries will continue to function as
drop-in centers for homeless, sometimes disturbed, sometimes malicious people, it's vital to make the rest of us feel safe there.

I say put the cameras inside the restrooms, but not covering the inside of the stalls. If criminal behavior is occurring inside the
stalls, then I'd even favor overhead cameras covering those areas,
too. Strict rules would have to be set up to control the access to those images, to protect privacy. But that shouldn't be too
difficult, since we already have the prototype for those rules:
HIPA, the U.S. Health Information Protection Act.

Since you're telling your readers about restroom-related topics in the Twin Cities, they might also be interested in the new exhibit at
the Hennepin History Museum: "Places to Go: Bathrooms of the Twin
Cities." Here's a link to the museum's Web site:

I read the article and guess I don't share your feelings about the cameras. Clearly if someone comes out of the restroom without dressing completely first, they aren't too concerned about who sees what...grant it, it is usually same sex...maybe the monitor of a female restroom could be required to be female...and visa versa. That said...I have worked for 6 years to provide a "safe" - "vandal resistant" - and "vagrant free" public restroom facility in Kellogg Park. Major cuts in personnel makes it impossible to provide the necessary surveillance to eliminate crime, vandalism or vagrancy in such facilities and safety is a huge concern. I would be in total support of cameras...as long as they did not invade the privacy of a urinal or stall.

Mine may be an unpopular view, but basic respect for human beings and facilities seems to be at an all time low. I hate to enter restrooms that don't have individual stalls with doors opening to the outside (gender specific gang type with labyrinths, etc.) where I can be assured that I will not have to be concerned that someone is lurking within. I think I would feel safer entering a restroom that I knew was being monitored, albeit by cameras, than one that wasn't.

Librarians have long led the fight for rights of free speech, assembly and privacy, so this surprises me. Particularly the real time monitoring of a real time loop.

The measure was instituted in response to 25% cut in library staffing. Rather than staff real time monitoring, why not institute periodic checks?

Despite the investment in hardware, perhaps it's a temporary measure? Let's hope library authorities announce it as such and do away with it as soon as funding permits. But I'd like to think that citizen outrage will make the situation temporary even quicker.

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